Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 338 pages of information about Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive.

that, in conjunction with the Protestant, he may give
his voice for members to serve in the legislature of
the country. What greatly adds to the evil is,
the lamentable alteration of public opinion, so lately
displayed against the measures of government in former
indulgences bestowed upon the Catholic interest; but
which has now changed into an entire approbation thereof,
both by the great body of the people and the minority
in the two houses of Parliament; and the only complaint
against government on that score is, that, stopping
short of meeting just claims of Catholics, they have
not ingrafted them into all the privileges of British
subjects, and for ever done away the odious distinction
between Protestant and Catholic, as to privilege.

When we open our eyes to the measures of the present
day, we behold still more abominations. The government
so far from remembering whence they are fallen, repenting
and doing their first works, have started again in
the cause of Antichrist, by leaguing themselves in
a military expedition with a group of Popish despots
on the continent, who have long given their power
to the beast; of this expedition one object evidently
appears to be the re-establishment and support of Popery
in France, where under the administration of the omnipotent,
and avenging holy providence of God, in the pouring
out of the vials of his wrath upon the beast, that
false religion has received a sore and bleeding wound,
and where the people, long crushed under the tyranny
of a despotic throne, and usurpation of an imposing
priesthood, have risen to extricate themselves from
the accumulated oppression, and by their astonishing
efforts have shaken off the Papal yoke, by renouncing
their accustomed allegiance to the head of the Antichristian
states at Rome, have withdrawn their wonted supplies
from his treasures, and completely overthrown the
temporal power of his religion in their own country,
which had for many ages kept them in fetters.
If any doubt should be entertained with regard to
the support afforded to the sinking cause of Popery
in France by this expedition, the declaration published
by the brother of the late King of France, stiling
himself Louis XVIII, at the head of the emigrants
in arms, exhibits the fact in the clearest point of
view, while he plainly and unequivocally says, in that
declaration, that their designs are the erection of
the throne and altar, by which are meant the civil
government and the Catholic religion, as they existed
in France prior to the revolution. Britain, not
satisfied with sending forth numerous hosts to the
field abroad, and lavishing her treasures to supply
the exhausted finances of the coalesced powers, has
opened her arms at home to receive flying emigrants,
caressed by her, as if they had been sufferers in
the cause of genuine Christianity. By the voice
of Episcopal dignitaries the Popish clergy have been
extolled, as men of the most eminent piety, while
places have been furnished by government, to accommodate

Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.